Bolingbrook seeks to revitalize housing development

Bolingbrook's village board approved a plan Tuesday to offer steep discounts for lots in a troubled subdivision that has cost the village millions.

A lot has not been sold at Americana Estates since 2005, according to village documents. The incomplete subdivision sits just to the south of Bolingbrook Golf Club, another taxpayer-funded venture that has failed to turn a profit for Bolingbrook.

The plan approved unanimously by the village board Tuesday would offer a lot list price of $60,000 for potential buyers in eight lots located on Clinton Court, a street named after President Bill Clinton.

Such lots were listed between $120,000 and $130,000 back in 2005, according to village documents.

The village's $12,000 water "tap-on" fee would be waived if a building permit is issued within six months of a lot purchase and if an occupancy permit is issued within a year of the building permit's issuance, according to village documents.

Fifty percent of the water connection fee would be waived if a building permit is issued from six months to a year after lot purchase and if an occupancy permit is issued within a year of the building permit, documents state.

Similar discounts would be available to any buyer who constructs a model home, according to Bolingbrook documents.

A 2009 Tribune analysis found the golf club and subdivision left Bolingbrook millions in the hole.

Even after deducting property sales and other income the village received from the subdivision and golf course, Bolingbrook sank more than $60 million into the projects, the Tribune analysis found.

The entire project began in the mid-1990s, when Bolingbrook leaders decided to buy up flood-plain land along the southwest section of Lily Cache Creek, which runs horizontally through the town, draining southwest, and build a series of seven "lakes" to bolster the storm-water management system, Mike Drey, then the village's director of public works and engineering, said in 2009.

"We ended up with a solution to the storm-water [issue], and the land owners ended up with more property that was developable," Drey said.

The village still owns 69 lots, plus the land in an undeveloped Phase 3 south of Lincoln Avenue.

Village Attorney Jim Boan said in a memo this month to the board that the village believes most of the vacant lots in Phase 1 of the development have been sold and are now owned by individuals and not the original builders.

"We have heard that some of the lots were sold after foreclosure for as little as $30,000," Boan wrote in the memo. "These 'fire sale' prices appear to be gone."

Bolingbrook did not receive any calls regarding Americana Estates availability or pricing for the first few years after 2005, according to Boan, but inquiries have trickled in at a rate of one or two a month for the past few years.

Mayor Roger Claar met with six local builders in recent months to gauge their opinion on interest in the development and lot value, according to Boan.

The village continues to pay homeowner association fees for the lots it owns, and maintains the streets "without any hope of completing the subdivision unless the lot prices become competitive," Boan writes in the memo.

Aside from blaming the subdivision's failure on the housing market crash, Claar and the trustees did not discuss the pilot program nor comment on it to any extent at Tuesday night's meeting.

"The roads and infrastructure installed by the Village continue to deteriorate," Boan wrote in the memo. "The lot prices will increase but there is little hope that lot prices will increase to near 2005 levels at any time in the near future."

Boan acknowledged in the memo that residents living in Phase 1 of the development may be disappointed in the lot price reduction.

"But it has been 8 years of inactivity and building out the subdivision will increase everyone's home values," he writes. "The existing covenants will regulate building size and materials which will keep the home prices up."

In other village board news, the trustees approved the town's annual $32,000 contribution to the non-profit Community Service Council of Northern Will County, which is headed up by Carol Penning, the village's clerk.

The board also signed off on $75,000 for the first phase of the removal of trees struck by the emerald ash borer.

The board approved emergency replacement of police video recording systems at the village hall, at a cost of about $41,000.

The old system, installed in 2004, abruptly failed and officials were unable to recover video feeds, Claar said.